ERICA
Chapter playlist:
This Is How I Roll — Money Mark
The Coffee Loft’s A-frame specials board informs me, in cheerful pink chalk, that today’s feature is a “Patriotic Cold Brew” with red, white, and blue cold foam, and I have several follow-up questions.
Right now I’m just standing here, waiting for Zoe to return from the bathroom so we can order, squinting at the specials board like it owes me an explanation. Cold foam should not have a flag in it. That feels like it should be a rule somewhere.
Sal called me last night to inform me he’d acquired me a DC connection.
Her name is Ivy, and she, according to Sal, is everything a ‘face’ should be.
She knows anyone who’s anyone in this town, and has collected more favors than she’ll use in one lifetime.
I was told she’ll meet us today at the Coffee Loft, so here I am, having arrived early as I always do for these kinds of things.
You can’t be too careful, after all. Zoe rushed into the bathroom as soon as we got here, because apparently, she gets the urge to go before she drinks coffee.
The barista calls out, “Iced oat milk matcha for… Germany? Ger… mine? Her guy? …Hermione? Okay. For… Herman. Iced matcha for Herman!”
Behind me, a chair scrapes back, and someone steps up to the pickup counter and takes the cup without comment. Herman, I guess.
I squint at the specials board, slightly disillusioned. The actual menu, the big one with prices, is on the wall above the counter. I take a step back to get the whole thing in frame.
Then my back collides directly into something. Something solid.
There’s a soft, doomed little crunch of what is probably a plastic cup, then, “Oof.”
I freeze, then that same voice says, “Oh…no.”
I spin around ready with an apology, and the first thing I register is the stain. A very large, very green stain, currently colonizing what I can only describe as an extremely well-constructed chest.
“Oh my gosh. Okay, don’t move.” I’m already at the napkin dispenser, hauling out a fistful, and I’m pressing them directly to his chest before either of us has formally agreed this is happening. And that’s when I register the other thing.
Abs. Actual, defined, ridge-having abs. I can feel them. Through a shirt. I am standing in the middle of a coffee shop, blotting at a stranger’s abdominal region with a fistful of napkins, and those abs are (I would just like this on the record, for posterity) ripped.
“It’s fine,” he says, immediately, automatically.
“It is not fine, oh my gosh…” I keep going, dabbing in a futile little circle over the worst of the stain, because apparently my hands have decided we’re doing this and nobody consulted the rest of me.
And I’m babbling, something about how I’m so sorry, I wasn’t even looking, I’ll buy him a new one, do they do refills, is matcha even refillable?
But then, smooth as chocolate, he says, “We gotta stop meeting like this.”
Something in the back of my brain sits up very straight. My hand, still on his chest… goes still.
And then I look up.
Brown eyes. Warm, amused, and here he is, dripping matcha, looking at me like I just walked out of a very bad dream.
Oh, says every cell in my body, in unison, with feeling. Oh, no.
It’s him.
Georgetown Waterfront. The watch. That wrist… attached to those forearms. Be still my heart.
“You,” I say.
“Me,” he agrees.
I keep dabbing, because if I stop dabbing I might say something unforgivable, like I’ve thought about you four times a week since May.
“What were you after this time?” he asks. “My wallet? My phone? I’ve got approximately eleven dollars in quarters from the hotel vending machine. Take your pick. I’ll even hold still.”
“I wasn’t after anything.”
He looks down (where I am now essentially feeling up his abs with a Coffee Loft napkin) then back up at me. The corner of his mouth does something complicated.
“You can stop now. I think it’s reached peak absorption.”
I straighten up. Toss the ruined napkins. Attempt, and largely fail, to look like a woman who did not just spend a full minute giving a stranger’s abdominal region a tender little massage in public.
“Right. Sorry. This really was a genuine accident.”
“Sure.” He says it the way you’d agree with someone who’s just told you the dog ate their homework, and the dog is, in fact, sitting right there, looking guilty. “Coincidence. Got it.”
And there’s that grin again, tugging at the corner of his mouth like it’s got somewhere better to be and isn’t in a hurry to get there.
“It’s not my fault the universe keeps doing this to you.”
“The universe isn’t the one doing the mustard trick.”
“The mustard trick?”
“It’s really a common pickpocketing scheme in big cities. Someone squirts mustard on you or some other substance. They then offer to help clean it off. While you’re distracted, an accomplice lifts your wallet, phone, or… watch.”
“That’s…” I’m about to say ridiculous, but he’s totally got a point.
“Okay, fair. That one’s on me.” I cross my arms, mostly so my hands have somewhere to be that isn’t near him.
“Although, for the record, I think you’re handling this remarkably well, considering I just gave myself a tour of your six pack. ”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He says it lightly, and something about the way he says it makes my stomach do a small, traitorous flip.
That’s when I notice the hat.
I genuinely don’t have words for it at first. It’s a baseball cap… but the color! The color is a pukey, milky orange. Not quite peach. Not quite sherbet. More like salmon that’s been left out on the counter too long.
Across the front, in letters big enough to be visible from a passing satellite, reads: GILL POWER
It is, objectively, kind of a girly hat. The lettering’s got a little wave to it, there’s a tiny cartoon bubble coming off one of the letters, the whole vibe is “I went to summer camp and all I got was this lousy hat.”
And here’s the genuinely upsetting thing. On literally anyone else, this hat would be a crime against fashion. Yet, on him it somehow works. The same way everything else about him apparently does. It’s truly unfair how hot he is. I kinda feel sorry for every other hat-wearer in this establishment.
I point at it. “Okay. I have so many questions.”
He blinks, reaches up, and seems to discover for the first time that he is wearing a hat. His hand goes still on the brim like he’s reading it through his fingers. Like braille. Like he’s hoping it’ll have changed since this morning.
“Huh,” he says.
“You forgot you were wearing that hat, didn’t you?” I am delighted. I am unreasonably, disproportionately delighted. “You walked all the way here, through public, past witnesses, wearing a hat that could have come out of a child’s birthday party goody bag… and you forgot it was on your head.”
“It was a gift.”
“From who? An aquarium? Did an aquarium adopt you?”
“It’s a work thing,” he says, with the dignity of a man standing on a sinking ship, insisting the orchestra keep playing.
“Wait.” I tilt my head, squinting at the letters again.
“Is that supposed to say Girl Power? Because… okay, I’m seeing it now, and honestly?
I’m into it. Very on-brand. Spice Girls were formative for me as a person.
If you’re secretly a Girl Power guy, I will not judge you, I will in fact respect it. ”
“It’s Gill. G-I-L-L. Like a fish.”
“Right. Obviously.” I give him an over-dramatic wink. “Gill Power. Very different message.”
“Completely different message,” he says defensively.
“Still kind of a vibe, though.” I smile, raking my eyes down his whole body, then back up to that monstrosity on his head. “What work requires Gill Power, specifically. Be honest. Are you a mascot?”
“I’m not a mascot.”
“A fish-themed children’s entertainer?”
He blinks at me for a beat… just a beat, but I feel it land somewhere under my ribs. “I genuinely cannot tell if you’re flirting with me or making fun of me.”
For one second, neither of us says anything. The espresso machine hisses behind the counter. Someone’s stroller squeaks past the window. I am suddenly, acutely aware of how little space there is between us, and how I have not yet taken a full step back.
“Both,” I say. “Obviously both.”
He laughs, that same short, surprised sound, like it keeps escaping before he can file the paperwork on it, and grabs a fistful of napkins of his own, mopping at the front of his shirt with brisk, no-nonsense efficiency.
The stain’s not going anywhere, not really.
It’s settled into the white cotton in a sort of abstract-art Rorschach situation, right over those delicious abs, and I try very hard not to think about the fact that I am now extremely familiar with the general topography of his chest.
Who does he think he is? Having a chest. In public. Where I can see it.
He glances at his watch (the one I tried to steal off him) and then around the cafe, scanning the room with a slightly furrowed look.
“You waiting on someone?” I ask.
“Yeah, I’m—”
A date, my brain supplies, instantly and with great confidence.
Obviously a date. Look at him. Men who look like that do not sit in coffee shops alone by choice.
Something in my chest dips. Small, sharp, and entirely unauthorized, given that I have known this man for approximately eight minutes total, and five of those was me trying to pull his watch.
“—meeting a guy.” He checks the door. Checks it again, like maybe the someone is hiding behind it. “He’s the one who told me this place has the best matcha in the District, which, frankly, feels like it’s on him now, given recent events.”
Oh. The dip reverses itself so fast I nearly get whiplash. Also not relevant. Also none of my business. Also, stop it, Erica.
He looks around one more time, frowning faintly. “He’s not here yet. Or he’s already gone. I… should probably check outside, though.”
Don’t go. Tell me your name. Ask my number this time, you absolute coward, I will let you, I will hand it over gift-wrapped.